He tells you how tough flocked grips are.
My latest Fluke rod went through 2 weeks of torture,First a head boat trip,The following day we bailed a few hundred fluke in a tournament,Slimed up the grips real good and left them in the boat to return the next day to fish again.That didnt happen so they sat a week in the cabin,then today back to the head boat for some squid slime,blue fish bycatch blood,and fluke scales.Came home and soap and watered the grips and they look like new,just like Bill promised.Never doubt a Cajun!!!(not that ever did).

Freddwhy (Rapt-Ryte)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/20/2007 09:55PM by Fred Yarmolowicz.

Fred I am from SW Louisiana is Bill from my part of the country. And if he is does he still live down here. I am always looking to meet builders from down here. I am very new at this so I can use all the help I can get. Just finished wrapping my first rod today and put CP on it tonight hope to put the epoxy tomorrow. That is right never doubt a cajun lol.


Brent Keever
Building friendships through custom rods

Brent,
check out the "Directory" section of this site and see if there are a rodbuilders listed near to you. We (at least I wouldn't)
don't list there for customers to see we list there so other builders can contact us if they wish.

Fred,
I agree with you 110% Bill knows is flock! I found out just how tough a good flock job is. Last year I bought some flocked
grips I found on that popular @#$%& site and was VERY disappointed to find out that the flocker used the LONG flocking
fibers and not the nice short ones and the grips felt VERY funny! I call them my "wolf man" grips.

Well, I thought it would be a simple process to just shorten the fibers by sanding, cutting, filing, etc: and I would have some
usable and comfortable grips. WRONG!!!!! I tried everything under the sun to get those long fibers to be short and ruined a
good electric razor in the process. No go. I tried everything shy of attacking them with a rasp while spinning at high speed
and could NOT succeed. Flocking is by far the thoughest material I have had the misfortune to try to alter ON PURPOSE!

BTW, anybody want some wolf man grips? LOL

Raymond Adams
Eventually, all things merge, and a river runs through it..

Thanks Raymond I did just that Bill lives about an hour from me thanks again

Brent Keever
Building friendships through custom rods

Another Swap Rat to contact down there would be Lance Dupre. Between him and Bill, you should be all set!!!!

Mike (Southgate, MI)
If I don't want to, I don't have to and nobody can make me (except my wife) cuz I'm RETIRED!!

The one and only failure I have had with flock I am sure would be quite amusing to most. Even that Kirkman guy had a smile on his face as he stumbled off shaking his head when he saw the failure. During the flocking seminar in High Point last year I passed a few rods with flocked grips around the full room for attendees to view. I also passed around some samples of grips that I told them to cut, chew, scrape, twist, pinch and do whatever they wanted to to test the material. Lance had built a very very nice popping rod with one of our split grips flocked with the Royal Blue material. It WAS one fine rod. Guess what! That nice rod succumbed to the someone's pocket knife. Some nice guy walked up and showed me the damage and told me the destroyer at least used a Case Gold old knife and he had trouble cutting the wedge out so he could take it with him. Lance has not laughed to this day!

Brent feel free to give me a call. I would love to spend some time with you.

Fred when are you going to apply finish at 200 rpm?

Bill



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 06/21/2007 09:17AM by Bill Stevens.

I've been skeptical of these flocked grips but I am going to have to give it a shot now.

Can't believe someone would cut some flock out of a grip. What a flocking idiot!!!

Scott when someone tries to sell something they can be faced with only four customer attitudes. Think about it for a few minutes there are no more - only these few simple words say a lot when dealing with a customer.

A. Indifference

B. Skeptism

C. Objection

D. Acceptance

In general, rodbuilders have not taken advantage of all the available proof sources which provide the answers to those who have a skeptical opinion concerning flocked grip surfaces. The real proof is the comfort and durability of the surface. If you do them in a quality manner and use the correct skills to reply to the attitudes listed above flocked grips do sell.

I hope all the readers of Rodmaker will take note of the ergonemetrics of grip surfaces noted in the last issue. If you think about what was written the most desirable grip surface could easily be properly shaped and sized flocked cork.

To me it is a total shame that fishing rods must look like the ones on the racks in the retail outlets!

Gon Fishn

The durability of flocked grips has never been in question - at least it shouldn't have been. Flocked grips were the grip of choice on big game trolling rods up through the 1950's, 60's and 70's. The cost, not durability issues, caused them to drop out of favor in the 80's. The military has been a major proponent of flocking on various items it uses and the technique itself goes back over 3000 years in China. It has a long and successful history worldwide.

When I wrote the article on do-it-yourself grip flocking, there were maybe only a couple or three rod builders making their own flocked grips, and they weren't using the technique explained in the article. To my knowledge they were using the electrostatic method (which is exceptional, by the way). In fact, The folks at Donjer, one of the various companies I was in contact with, really weren't sure what to recommend for a home builder do-it-yourself flocking method for fishing rod grips. We went back and forth with a few ideas and tried some different things, fiber types, sizes, lengths, etc., and the result is what you read in the article.

The first few I did utilized shredded/ground EVA material. Tough as all get out but very uncomfortable. I thought I could improve on the idea, but wasn't able to. When I bit the bullet and decided we'd have to use nylon or other fibers like the originals, things got one heck of a lot better. But in all that time, I've yet to have any flocked grip made with the method outlined in RodMaker (and which Donjer put on their website) have issues with durability. I've had guys try to peel the flock off with their thumbnails, pocketknives or by raking a grip across the floor. None have been able to damage the flocking.

I have no doubt that some have had durability issues with flocked grips, but that fault would be with the flocker, not the flocking or method itself. As with anything, there are but a very few ways to do the job right, but a million ways to do it wrong.

Data arrived at by multitudes of ergonomics and biomechanical research has proven that EVA, Hypalon, etc., are among the very worst products that you can use for any grip material, at least if we're talking about using them in solid form (a thin skin of foam - 4mm or less, over the top of a more rigid material does have practical advantages in some instances). A flocked cork grip has much to recommend it as a superior fishing rod grip and research pretty much backs up the old claim that these were (are) the "Cadillac of Rod Grips."



.....................

sigh. I can see it now. Rich spends even MORE money on this all consuming hobby that is rodbuilding. I love the look of the flocked grips, need to try it - this thread convinces me even more. I try to never be skeptical about anything until I see it firsthand :-)

Tom Kirkman Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> ..... To my knowledge they were using the
> electrostatic method (which is exceptional, by the
> way). .....

Same effect as powder coating? Interesting.
Think you can do it in a blasting cabinet, to keep down stuff going airbourne? Small fibers might even work without clogging in a gun.

Not much reason to go to all that trouble when the mini-flocker works so well and easily. Do it like the article says and the stuff won't get airborne.

................

No trouble at all, for me anyway,,, I happen to have 2 blasting cabinets, one of which I rarely use. If I picked up a new toy everytime I tried something different, I'd be in BIG trouble.

All you'd be doing is moving the flock from the gun to the adhesive coated surface so it would certainly work in some capacity. The electro-static method actually puts a charge on the flock which causes them to move directly to the grip surface and stand on end. If your blasting cabinet won't add the charge, I don't see much advantage to it over the mini-flocker. But there's no reason not to experiment.

............

This and a plastic garbage bag will allow almost 100 percent recovery of fibers for reuse. Twenty split grip sets per 1 oz bag of flock is my average. Use this with the Mini Flocker and your savings in time and cost should make the set up highly practical.

[www.rodbuilding.org]

Gon Fishn